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[Fighbird]

In the past couple of months I have been very fortunate in being able to get some very exotic toys in through the door - litteraly from all over the world (if 3 select countries count as "all over the world"): Mexico, Venezuela and Greece. As such, I saw it fitting to elaborate a bit an old article of mine on the subject of this original minibot here, Brawn.

"Green"? "Khaki"? "Black"? "Brown"? "Brawn"?!? Nah, I don't see any connection...

Like most of the very early series Transformers toy, Brawn here was produced and released in a lot of different countries, with many of the toys displaying slight differences depending on producer. By the late 1980s though, most (if not all) companies able to produce licensed Transformers toys were gone, reverting all production back to Takara and countries like Japan, Macau and China, and these country specific variations became rather limited from then on. But this only makes the early ones that were that more interesting in my mind.

IGA Plasticos, the Mexican lincese holder for producing licensed Transformers in the mid-1980s, is a complete chapter (or two) all by itself. Interesing color and mold variations abound, these releases are coveted by a lot of collectors. But usually only the interesting variants - rarely is there any interest in IGA toys that don't sport any sort of irregularity as when compared to the "real deal" (i.e. a Hasbro release). However, looks can be decieving (and yes, I appreciate the irony of that statement when talking about Transformers... ) as I pointed out a couple of weeks back.

Another candidate for an easy dismissal as something out of the ordinary is IGA's version of Brawn. Usually collectors are falling head over heels over the IGA repaint of Brawn that they marketed as their version of Outback, but the "regular" Brawn release is quite unique as well.

Left to right in all pictures: US pre-rub Brawn, IGA Brawn and Rubiplas Brawn.

Vehicle mode shows no real difference from the "baseline" release of a Hasbro pre-rub Brawn. Upon closer inspection, though, the color of the green plastic seems just a smidgen darker, almost blue-ish in hue (hard to see in these pictures, I guess).

However, the real clincher is robot mode. Like Bumblebee, indistinguishable all by his lonesome self, the hue of his robot mode torso is clearly a more yellow tone as when compared with to a regular US pre-rub Brawn's orange (much more clear in person than on these pictures, for some reason). Unlike most of his IGA brethren he retains a full copyright string with a clear mention of JAPAN, but features a pointy-edged Autobot symbol on his stomach - another sure telltale IGA pointer. IGA toys were very prominent in Europe in the late-1980s, so it should be possible to find a toy like Brawn in the odd auction once in a while. Very hard to spot, when the only sure-fire tell is the pointy Autobot symbol on his chest, unless there is a comparison shot with other orange or yellow toys (well, anyone except IGA Bumblebee really... ).

Moving further down into South America, we come to another spanish-speaking country, Venezuela. It was only a few years ago that TF collectors were even made aware that Venezuela had their own Transformers releases, and as such, only a handful are known to exist. This exact specimen shown below here even retains its even rarer original packaging, and was a complete treat to discover for sale on eBay a few months ago.

Left to right: Rubiplas Brawn (Venezuela) and El Greco Brawn (Greece).

Comparing the IGA and Rubiplas Brawn we find both a few surprising similarities, but also a few important dissimilarities: Rubiplas Brawn features the same yellow torso color as IGA Brawn - perhaps even a tad brighter in hue. Also, the stamping on both toys are exactly alike, with mention of both Hasbro and Takara and Japan. However, Rubiplas Brawn features a different Autobot symbol than IGA Brawn (see images above). Vastly different, actually, where the print seems too big for the paper and the color is more magenta than red. Also, the green plastics are more of a slightly brighter yellow hue, and - probably most visibly telling - the wheel hubs are smooth without the usual hub cap indentation details.

My biggest surprise, though, was when I took a closer look at the greek Brawn, produced by El Greco.

Left to right in both pictures: US pre-rub Brawn, El Greco Brawn.

Carded, it's obvious that the toy looks a bit different, as his head is missing all paint applications. It might appear as though the black on his helmet sides and his faceplate is paint (I assumed so myself untill I got this exact specimen to examine closer), but it is in fact a seperate piece of plastic that is black; looking at a US pre-rub Brawn we can see that this piece is painted silver in all visible areas except for the slit for the eyes.

But loose more strange elements start to appear. Most obvious, and for me most surprising, was the rather large mold alteration in his engine block: The large stylized 'M' has been removed! I find this very strange. Why the trouble of remolding a single piece? Looking at the El Greco Huffer, who shares Brawn's origins in the Microman Micro Change line, the tell-tale 'M' (as in Microman/Change) is still present. No remolding here.

On the back we find that his copyright stamp has been removed as well. Also strange, but not more than Estrela in Brazil did this for their releases of Brawn as well - but they did however add a mention of Estrela on the inside of the legs of their toys. No such thing on El Greco Brawn, which leaves him rather feature-less in pretty much all respects.

Huffer never looked so bad-ass! The redish El Greco Huffer (foreground) and his orange Micro Change predecessor (background).

El Greco Huffer has no copyright stamp at all, but El Greco Seaspray has a full stamp with mention of both Hasbro and Takara (although the country of origin is blocked out) - and looking at the El Greco Devastator giftset, there is a clear mention of Takara. On the other hand, the El Greco Devastator has a 'Trasformer' logo on it, which shows some sort of connection with the italian license held by GiG. On the third hand, GiG never produced the minibots, so while that might explain why the minis El Greco released didn't carry any mention of Takara or Trasformers, it doesn't explain why Brawn had to be changed that much.

El Greco Brawn is not a tough find, BTW, as a large quantity of MOSC greek minibots was found 5 years ago or so and are still easy to locate.

So even though IGA Brawn and Rubiplas Brawn maybe are the tougher pieces to locate, and - although that is a matter of opinion - look rather dashing in their yellow livery, El Greco Brawn is the most curious one and by far held the biggest surprise and mysteries for me.

DISCLAIMER: The images if El Greco Devastator are not mine. I found them online a long time ago and sadly I don't remember where. If you are the owner of these pictures, feel free to contact me so I can give you due credit and/or removed them from this page if you so desire.

Reason for edit: Fixed bad URLs...

[Groundsplitter]

A fun fact: I got curious what Brawn's Greek name, Εγκεφαλος (or ΕΓΚΕΦΑΛΟΣ with capital letters as above), means. It turns out it means "Brain", which I think is quite paradoxical considering that brains is usually put in stark contrast to brawn.

[NRJohn]

Very interesting! I love the first picture in particular! I don't have any g1 Brawn so I'll have to make do with the ROTF one. I also wonder if Cybertron Overhaul was intended as a "Brawn"?

Anyway, considering some IGA tf's (and perhaps others?) made their way to Europe, what version might we come across over here?

[Fighbird]

A fun fact: I got curious what Brawn's Greek name, Εγκεφαλος (or ΕΓΚΕΦΑΛΟΣ with capital letters as above), means. It turns out it means "Brain", which I think is quite paradoxical considering that brains is usually put in stark contrast to brawn.

Very interesting fact! Thanks for looking that up; it never crossed my mind that the name used would be anything but a litteral translation of Brawn.

The El Greco card doesn't feature a Tech Specs on its back (it's rather bland with the usual instructions area, a general blurb about Transformers and then the 1986 Glow-in-the-Dark poster image for graphics. No bio or stats or anything, as it could have been great fun to read what "Brain" here would've had for a personality since he apparently exchanged his primary skill with something else entirely.

[Fighbird]

Very interesting! I love the first picture in particular! I don't have any g1 Brawn so I'll have to make do with the ROTF one.

Thank you! You should try and seek out a G1 Brawn, and if nothing else, then one of the keychain reissues, 'cause he is actually a pretty neat and fun toy. The keychains aren't really that rare, and actually are closest in look and feel to the original of the 4 reissues (the other 3 keychains are close but all have a few too-obvious shortcomings IMHO). ROTF Brawn is one of the best non-screen toys and most bad-ass looking warriors to appear in a long time, so you have a pretty good substitution there already.

I also wonder if Cybertron Overhaul was intended as a "Brawn"?

Good question, actually. I seem to recall that there was a supposed G1 reference to have been attached to the development of Overhaul, but couldn't remember it, so I went to TFWiki and looked in the "Notes" section and found this:

* Originally, Overhaul was going to be called Trailbreaker, in reference to the Generation 1 character of the same name, including several proposed designs for the head sculpt that would have featured a structure reminiscent of Trailbreaker's characteristic radio-jamming broadcaster on the top of his head. However, the trademark could not be secured for this, resulting in a name change and an entirely different head sculpt.

and

* Overhaul's color scheme is based on Generation 1 Brawn. Although the two share some character traits, that was not the main reason for the color choice: After the "Trailbreaker" idea fell flat due to trademark reasons, he was originally intended to sport Generation 1 Outback's colors. Ultimately that deco was also abandoned, and the colors of Outback's mold-mate Brawn were chosen instead.

So yeah, maybe not originally intended to be an homage to G1 Brawn, but eventually became so after a lot of "detours".

Anyway, considering some IGA tf's (and perhaps others?) made their way to Europe, what version might we come across over here?

Well, I'd wager that at least 80% of all G1 Brawns you'd find on Tradera and places like that are either MB/Hasbro european releases (which are basically the same), and then the last 20% are IGA releases. Just a rough estimate, but I have a feeling that not a lot of IGA minicars were actually sold. Sure, they were on pegs locally around here, but looking at some of the TF lots I've bought in the past 15 years, most of the IGAs that actually did show up were mainly Autobot Cars, Jumpstarters and Constructicons. I know the IGA minis were available in Scandinavia, as I've heard of at least 2 confirmed childhood purchases, and I bought an IGA Outback myself from a swedish seller a few years back. So they are out there, although pretty rare (and hard to spot unless you know what to look for).

In general, it is assumed that all IGA releases made their way to Scandinavian stores in the late 80s. Some toys I know I never saw back in the day (as I would surely have bought them) like Megatron, Soundwave and Bumblebee, but store selection probably varied quite a bit considering what I know others have bought around here during that time.

[Tformer]

Yet another very interesting and entertaining read.

Even though I'm since long aware of the numerous international variants of the early Minibots, I can't help but get taken back I read about just how many there are. I'm actually quite thankful for my lacking economy at the moment. If had too much spare cash I'd almost feel compelled to enter the Minibot market myself!

[Fighbird]

Thank you for your kind words, my friend.

And if you want my advice on starting collecting rare minibot variants: Don't. Unless you like paying really insane amounts for very small pieces of plastic, while scouring dubious auction sites all over the world for that one rare mini that no one has documented the telling features of yet. Just IMHO, of course.

[Fighbird]

I think I forgot to ID all these guys here above, so let me correct that:

Back row, left to right:
Lynsa Brawn (Peru), Encore Outback (Japan), IGA Outback (Mexico), Estrela Jipe (tan, Brazil), Micro Change Jeep (Japan), Rubiplas Brawn (Venezuela), Hasbro Brawn (rub mark, US).

Front row, left to right:
Hasbro Brawn (pre-rub, US), El Greco Brain (Greece), Fun4All Brawn (regular green, US), IGA Brawn (Mexico), Estrela Jeep (green, Brazil), Fun4All Brawn (chase black variant, Japan).

I have a really hard time figuring out which one I like the most. I mean, I'm a sucker for "weird" color variations and there are lots of them in this lot here: IGA Outback, with his Brawn mold in sand and maroon; Estrela Jeep, with his tan and white colors; El Greco Brain with his weird engine retool, Lynsa Brawn with his green and khaki off-beat colors; MC Jeep, for a very nice camo-ish brown/green hue.

I just don't know.